Tech Tool Essentials: Writing, Presenting and Researching

In an educational setting, programs for researching, writing and presenting are amongst the most important. With the expansion of the tech industry, more and more programs are being created, giving rise to new and innovative tools for presenting, researching, and writing/recording information.

Researching:

Efficiently researching an ever-expanding online database can be a challenge, but with the development of more advanced search engines, it has never been easier or faster to find your desired results. In education and other academic disciplines, there is a desire for sources of information retrieved from an online search to be more credible and reliable than what gets pulled up in your average Google search. This desire has given rise to online search portals, designed to refine search results to only peer reviewed or scholarly articles. Here are a list of some useful academic search engines and databases:

• Jstor

• EBSCO

• Google Scholar

• ERIC

• Refseek

When choosing an academic search engine, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind, the first being that many of these databases are subject specific (for example, EMBASE deals only with Biomedicine and Pharmacology. Secondly, there is the issue of access. Academic literature and peer reviewed articles are important resources that are often copyright and require purchase or subscription to view or use. Most Universities or other academic institutes will have a subscription to some of these databases and provides login information for its staff and students. However, with the rising popularity of Open Sourcing materials (making information free to view and use for public access), there is an increasing number of free online academic portals. It is also possible to purchase subscriptions to many of these databases for your own personal use.

Here is a nice list of academic databases, their disciplines and their access options.

Writing:

Document writing programs (or Word Processing Programs) have revolutionized the classroom over the past few decades by allowing a fast, easy, and clear way to record, copy, edit, save, store and share textual information. With tools like copy/paste, autocorrect, word count, formatting, and allowing the inclusion of links, images and even videos, text and writing programs are probably one of the most useful basic technologies for teaching.

For the student as well as the teacher, the implications of the use of these programs are:

-Facilitation of the writing process- For example, writing lessons, reports, student projects, etc.

- No more messy handwriting

- Easy editing

- Storage and backup, in the event a hard copy is lost

- Less paper use = more environmentally friendly

- Allows sharing and sending documents instantly

- Allows the use of figures, graphs, illustrations, images, and now even audio/video

- Accommodates students/learners who struggle or have LD assessments or designations

Here's a list and description of some of the more popular word processing programs:

• Microsoft Office- Probably the most popular. Includes Excel for Spreadsheets and Word for documents. Requires purchase.

• Evernote- designed for note taking and storage. Basic account is free, with the option of subscribing for premium benefits.

• OpenOffice- the leading alternative to Microsoft Word, with presentation and spreadsheet addons. It's free!

• Office Online- an online version of a simpler version of MS Office. Requires a Microsoft Account

Presenting:

Presenting information is probably one of the most exciting outlets for incorporating technology into the classroom:

• Audio and Video Presentation (Here is fantastic TedTalk from the creator of Khan Academy on using video to transform the classroom).

• Google Slides- incredibly useful for collaborative or groupwork presentations. Requires Google account Login

• Prezzie (See our web-based project)

• Powerpoint- still used, but usually massively overdone and BORING. Beware "Death by Powerpoint"- Matthew Kruger-Ross, 2015

• Emaze - extremely user-friendly and fun!

• Slideshare- a program on the rise! Import your word or powerpoint document and make it snazzy using Slideshare